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Saturday, June 28, 2014

With the sixth-round pick from Florida the Devils acquired in the Krys Barch trade (152nd overall), the Devils selected center Joey Dudek of Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire.

The 5-foot-11, 180-pound native of Derry, N.H, was the 109 ranked North American skate available, according to NHL Central Scouting. He had nine goals and 35 assists for 44 points 25 games in 2013-14 as a high school senior.

He is committed to attend Boston College, but plans to play for Dubuque in the USHL in 2014-15 (under former Devils assistant coach Matt Shaw).

Dudek played for the Valley Junior Warriors program in Massachusetts that produced Rangers left wing Chris Kreider. One of the coaches on the team was former Devils center and assistant coach Bobby Carpenter. Former NHLers Bob Sweeney and Steve Leach also coached the team.

Dudek said “the biggest piece I can take from Bobby Carpenter that’s stuck with me for a while is smart shooting.”

“I had one shot that I can remember where I was on the power play and I shot it over the net and it comes out of the zone,” he said. “It’s just a dumb play. So, just smart shooting, knowing what to do with your shots, whether it’s putting it in the back of the net or getting off the pad for an assist.”

That he ended up being picked by the Devils after Carpenter coached him turned out to be a coincidence (Devils GM Lou Lamoriello did not speak to Carpenter about Dudek.)

“It actually didn’t cross my mind until I was walking and I looked down at my jersey and I was like, ‘I was coached by Bob Carpenter and now I’m drafted to the New Jersey Devils’,” Dudek said. “So, it’s definitely falling into place a little bit.”

Dudek described his game as, “I like to make players around me much better. I’m a real team player. I have a lot of poise in the offensive zone, but I do like to play two ways. I like to play in the defensive zone as much as I play in the offensive zone.”

Dudek called this “the most special day of my life so far.”

“Hopefully, there’s many more to come, but to be able to celebrate with both of my parents up there was pretty incredible,” he said.

Dudek’s father, Joe, once drew headlines as an athlete, but in a different sport – football. While at Division III Plymouth State in New Hampshire, he broke Walter Payton’s NCAA record for career touchdowns and was touted by Sports Illustrated in a cover story to win the Heisman Trophy of Bo Jackson and Chuck Long.

Joe Dudek made it to the NFL only as a replacement player for Denver during the 1987 players’ strike.

Joey Dudek is well aware of his father’s legend as a football player.

“I know a lot of the background of what my dad’s done,” Joey Dudek said. “It’s pretty incredible. I’m just trying to make a name for myself in a different sport.”

Joey Dudek said his father didn’t push him to play football, though he did show some talent in it.

“He asked me to do one thing,” he said. “It was a punt, pass and kick and I tried it when I was 11 years old and I actually did very well. I came in seventh in the nation.”

But, by then, Joey Dudek had grown to love hockey. That wasn’t always the case, though. He almost quit the sport right after he started.

“It’s kind of a weird situation,” Joey Dudek said. “Both of my parents have been really supportive and let me play anything I wanted and I started playing hockey, I tried it at 8 years old, and I hated it. I’d come off the ice crying and my parents weren’t huge proponents of quitting, so I stuck it out the rest of the season. It was a house league. I scored lots of goals, started to like it and I joined the junior travel team the next year. That’s kind of when I took off.”

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.